Mega vs. Targeted Websites - How Many Websites Do Law Firms Need To Succeed Online?
By: Dustin Ruge
May, 2009
As more attorneys become active on the web, so to does the competition that takes place for those prominent “first page” organic search engine results that everybody wants. In Google, where roughly 75% of all search engine searches take place, there are only 10 of these organic “first page” positions for each search. Since roughly 90% of people never look page the first page of these results, it is no surprise that some law firms will stop at next to nothing to maintain these lofty positions – much like they did years ago in the phone books. So why are some law firms who were in the top 5 of these search results only a few months or years ago now finding themselves completely off of page 1 results today while others continue to remain strong in light of no further changes to their website?
Google, Yahoo and other search engines use an esoteric algorithm to determine how web pages rank in their search results. Much like KFC’s 11 secret herbs and spices, the search engines are pros at leaving people guessing as to the formula they use. In Google’s instance, there were over 400 changes last year alone to their algorithm so even if you figured it out, they will still keep you guessing. That is the bad news. The good news is that through experience, trial and error, and the launching of millions of websites to date, some industry experts have a general idea of what works consistently on the web for best results. It is not an exact science but it is better than guessing what is really in those KFC deep fat fryers.
Most law firms today have either one website with all of their practice areas listed or multiple websites commonly dedicated to 1-2 similar/related practice areas. Larger firms with one website containing multiple practice areas are commonly referred to a “Mega-Sites” while firms with multiple websites representing different practice areas are referred to a “focused sites” or “target sites.” So when it comes down to what type of website/s your firm needs to succeed online, it is best to start by addressing the following four important factors:
1.) Goals
2.) Competition
3.) Budget
4.) Resources
Goals – Where do you want to go with your practice?
Every attorney and/or law firm should have an idea of where they want to be in 3-5 years from now - if you don’t, stop right here before you read any further. You need to remember that an efficient online marketing strategy for your practice and/or firm will only be successful in so far as you can define what success means to you. A good online strategy can help you find new cases and clients, grow into many different practice areas, attract more desirable cases, and ultimately grow your practice. But creating an online strategy without these goals and objectives is like putting the cart in front of the horse.
One of the main advantages of the web over traditional ubiquitous marketing mediums such as phone books, TV advertisements, etc., is that the web now provides you with the opportunity to get HIGHLY focused with your marketing messages. In short, the internet now allows us to put the right attorneys, in front of the right people at the right time. Being a criminal defense lawyer in the phone book could yield you calls for any type of client that can dial a phone number. On the web, you can now be HIGHLY selective and focused on exactly what type of criminal cases you wish to receive, when your customers are looking for an attorney. No other marketing medium before the web has ever provided attorneys with so much marketing power in such an efficient manner.
Competition – Who are you competing with online for the same clients and cases?
Most attorneys and law firms have multiple practices areas. There also tends to be a direct correlation between the relative size and density of a geographic location (say New York City for example) and the specialization of attorneys in their work. In more rural locations, it is not surprising to find attorneys that will handle practically any case under the sun. Conversely, in larger metropolitan areas you will tend to find more specialized and larger multi-partner firms that can be both specialized and/or containing multiple attorneys who practice in many practice areas.
No matter how many firms you are potentially competing with online, Google only has 10 positions available for each of their search results pages. Since most people will look for attorneys based on a geographic search (example: Criminal Defense Lawyer + New York City), you will have to determine what your relative competition is online for each of your practice areas. If, for example, you were a criminal defense attorney in Flagstaff Arizona (criminal defense lawyer + Flagstaff Arizona), you will have significantly less geographic competition than other criminal defense attorneys in Phoenix (criminal defense lawyer + Phoenix Arizona).
By reviewing your top 10 competitors in Google for each of these practice areas, take notice if the pages displayed are the “home” page of the website (commonly ending in ….com/) or a practice area page within the website (commonly ending in a sub-page after .com, such as …com/criminal-law.htm). The more “home” pages you see in the first page results, the more “focused” or “targeted” websites you are likely to compete with. Other clues include looking at the website address itself starting in www… to see if any criminal law keywords are included in the website address as well.
For many of the most competitive practice areas online such a personal injury, criminal defense, divorce, etc., it is not uncommon to find websites that are highly targeted and very specific in their practice areas in larger metropolitan areas – these also tend to be the websites with the highest visibility. For those highly competitive markets that also have practice area pages competitively displayed along with “home” pages, these are commonly the result of a large number of relevant inbound links pointing to that web page - thereby increasing the pages visibility to become more competitive.
Budget – How much are you willing to spend to compete?
Every practice must work within a budget. Looking back to the previously discussed goals for your practice, it is important to note that Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will be your practice. By having longer-term goals and objectives for your practice, you can begin to walk-back from that point in time to determine what you will need to get there over the course of the months and years ahead. Websites and online marketing are not “build them and they will come” propositions any longer – competition has done away with this line of thinking. By having a growth strategy in place, you will be better able to determine how the web will help get you to your goals and how quickly.
The most important consideration when first understanding a good web strategy is to make sure you know the difference between a liability and an asset. A liability is simply money spent that provides a negative return, or more money needed to maintain it (referred to as an expense in accounting). An asset is money that provides a positive return (referred to as an income in accounting) on your investment (ROI) – which is exactly how you should approach your online marketing strategy. The goal of any good online marketing strategy is to create an asset that provides a measureable return to your investment.
So where should you invest your money? The simple answer is where you can create the highest returns. Pareto’s Law states that 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes. This law applies to almost all aspects of our lives (taxes, business output, wealth accumulation, etc.), including law. Most law firms today will find that around 20% of their potential cases will generate 80% of their potential revenues. Similarly, many firms will also discover that 80% of their time is spent on directly generating just 20% of their income potential. So following this principle, it is most important to determine what are the cases you want to generate online that will provide the highest income at in the least amount of time, right? By answering this question, you will be better positioned to determine your budget base on your goals. If your marketing/PR dollars turn out to be assets, than they should yield the results that will help lead you to your goals without creating incremental liabilities.
Resources – What do I have and/or will I need to be successful online?
You are an attorney, not a search engine marketing expert so you need to first dispel the myth that you need to be an expert in both arenas to succeed in both – you don’t. People will seek you out because you have the ability to provide them with a service that they cannot adequately provide themselves. Hiring a search engine marketing expert is no different.
One of the common misconceptions today when it comes to online marketing is that one person can do it all. This would be like saying that a single attorney in New York City can adequately represent you in a federal criminal case, handle your divorce proceedings, and help you litigate a condo dispute. In the online world, this comes in part from little cousin Jimmy who learned how to create a website some years back that uncle Steve the attorney thought looked pretty cool for his practice. The only problem is that Uncle Steve is nowhere to be found on the search engines when people are looking for attorneys in his practice areas. In short, you get what you pay for. If Uncle Steve knew in advance where he wanted his law firm to be five years from now, all of a sudden little Jimmy could have been viewed more as a liability to his practice than an asset.
Just so we understand here, this was not Cousin Jimmy’s fault – it was Uncle Steve’s. Don’t make the same mistake in your practice. Understand your goals and objectives and build your website and online marketing strategy to help support it. If you have resources to assist in this process, then definitely utilize them in the proper way. But just as you won’t hire a real estate attorney to handle a complex federal criminal case, don’t make the same mistake by hiring somebody to execute on your online marketing strategy that only knows one area of an increasing complex and competitive industry.
Which Website strategy is best for your law firm?
When “Mega” websites may be your best option:
1.) If you practice in a more rural, non-competitive geographic market (i.e. smaller town or city). Since most searches for attorneys include a geography, your competition online will largely be a function of it. Websites with multiple practice areas tend to do better in searches where geography helps to limit your competition. For example, if there are only 10 estate attorneys in Grand County Colorado, then a simple practice page optimized for estate planning in Grand County may be all that you need to compete for each search.
2.) If your competition has fewer “targeted” or “focused” websites online. A good targeted website can dominate over practice area pages so the fewer targeted websites you have to compete with, the better your chances with practice area pages.
3.) If your budget limits how much presence you can create online for all of your practice areas. Multiple “targeted” websites cost more money and can take more time to manage. If you cannot currently afford more than one website AND you cannot compete with a traditional multi-practice area website in your market, than you might want to consider focusing your web dollars on only one or two practice areas that can provide you with the highest return and chance to succeed online. This can allow you to grow your practice incrementally and add further websites/web pages down the road.
4.) If your current website address (i.e. URL) has been released for years now and/or has a number of existing inbound links. Much like an established business you see every day, the search engines like longevity when it comes to website addresses. The longer you exist, the more likely the search engines are to award you with visibility and the more likely you are to receive inbound links into your web address. The higher the quantity and quality of links you have, the better your visibility and Page Rank on Google.
5.) If your existing website is performing well, you can create deep textual inbound links into your practice area pages to help elevate their visibility on the search engines. Professional inbound linking campaigns can costs hundreds to even tens of thousands of dollars a year but can also provide your practice area pages with higher visibility than can come from content alone. Inbound links act as “votes” for web pages receiving them on your website and search engines like Google track these links to determine what websites are more credible and should have the greatest visibility.
When “Focused” or “Targeted” websites may be your best option:
1.) If you practice in a more urban, highly-competitive geographic market (i.e. larger town or city). Remember, most searches for attorneys online include geography so the higher the density of the population, the most competition you have for the same amount of space on Google, Yahoo, etc.
2.) If you have a larger number of “targeted” or “focused” websites as your competition online. Remember, the more prominent and consistent your content is compared to your competition, the better chance you have to compete.
3.) If your budget allows you to create one or more websites - each focused ideally on no more that 1-2 related practice areas. Title Tags on web pages are limited to 65-120 characters in length which typically allows for full optimization of up to 2 practice areas only, including your geography. This is especially important for the Title Tags that are on your home page which serve as a type of anchor for the rest of your website. Therefore, it is better to have all title tags throughout the website relatively consistent to the home page which is what a more targeted website can better allow you to do.
4.) If you are limited to the amount of inbound textual linking you can provide (or afford to create) to you practice area pages in relation to your competition. Professional inbound linking campaigns can cost hundreds to even tens of thousands of dollars a year. So make sure you understand your competition’s inbound links and compare that cost to alternatively building more targeted websites instead.
5.) If multiple practice areas in your firm are not related. Some law firms with totally unrelated practice areas will simply have a different targeted audience for each. For example, if your firm has a emphasis on personal injury (i.e. dog bites, constructions accidents, etc.), transactional real estate, and divorce law, than you need to ask yourself what kind of tone, look and feel, and imagery do you want to convey for each audience? In many cases, you stand a better chance of success when each area stands alone as it’s own website – even though it is the same law firm.
6.) If you want to dominate a specific practice area. Just because your firm already has a website, doesn’t mean you can’t build another targeted site for a specific practice area. This can often be the result of a change in economic conditions (i.e. a sudden increase in bankruptcy, foreclosures, etc.), changing focus of the partners in a firm, or simply the realization that some practice areas can produce a higher return online than others.
What about social media like Blogs, Twitter, Lined-In, Facebook and the like?
Social media is exploding onto the legal scene faster than most people can comprehend. Unlike more static websites that have been in general use for over a decade, all types of new ways to virtually communicate, network and market legal practices online have complicated the choices further for many attorneys. The trend of “blogging” first came to light as an easier and more efficient manner to publish work, encourage more symmetrical discussion and allowing for more virtual content creation and management online. Additional networking and personal interaction tools like Linked-In and Facebook also allow for more virtual networking opportunities for attorneys to more effectively reach out to other attorneys, groups of attorneys and people through people who are “linked” to each other, or simply by searching and invitations online. Then came tools like “Twitter” that allows people to literally share updates on “what they are doing” at any time of the day and sharing this information to other people who wish to follow them.
All of these tools can play important roles in helping to create a comprehensive online marketing strategy for your practice but there are a few things to consider before you start utilizing each:
1.) Many of these tools that are hosted by large providers (i.e. Twitter, Blogger, Linked-In, etc.) do not allow you to create inbound links to your website/s that would help improve your visibility on the search engines (i.e. they use “nofollow” attributes in their link properties). There are ways to work around this for such tools as Blogger as I have instructed on my own blog at: http://legalseo.blogspot.com/ but in general, an SEO consultant will be better able to help with understand the true value of each vehicle and what deployment options are best for your practice.
2.) Social media such as Blogs and Twitter require a time and consistency commitment that many attorneys should fully consider before pursuing. If an attorney simply cannot “keep up” with these tools, then they can cause more harm than good. In these cases, a more static website would be your best focus.
3.) Most people who “blog” and “tweet” do so to share important and/or useful information. When people follow and participate in these, they do so because they find it useful to them – much like a link from one website to another tends to indicate the same manner of usefulness to the search engines. So if you are going to pursue social media, make sure you do so with a purpose and useful meaning behind it. Will other attorneys find your writings useful? Will clients find your information helpful? Will your writings and messages lead to new business generation? Will the results of your time blogging justify the opportunity cost of not using that time for other matters? Will my blogs, tweets, etc. ultimately lead people to your website/s? It is a good idea to ask yourself all of these questions before you begin. If you don’t, then your efforts may be nothing more than a billboard in the middle of a cornfield.
In short, social media is not an effective replacement today for a good website strategy but rather an extension of it. By working with a good SEO consultant, you can put together a sound strategy based on your goals and objectives that will properly utilize any and/or all of these tools based on your firm’s needs.
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